Unidentified Woman #15 (10 page)

“How do you know El, anyway?” she asked.

“We were involved in a car accident.”

“You wrecked her Ram truck? And she let you live?”

The pickup was hers,
my inner voice said.
They tried to kill her using her own truck. Assholes.

“No, no, no,” I said aloud. The mechanism in my brain that controlled lies was in overdrive. “It wasn’t as bad as all that. I dinged her in the parking lot. The damage was less than my deductible, so we took care of it without bothering our insurance companies. While we were working it out, I invited her to a party that I threw a week ago. That’s where the photo was taken. She said the next time I came through Deer River I should check out O’Malley’s. And here I am.”

Cyndy nodded like it all made perfect sense to her, and then she asked a question that tripped every one of my internal alarm systems.

“Do you know where she is?”

Wait, wait, wait,
my inner voice screamed.
Kids today stay in constant touch with Facebook; they tweet and text every moment of their lives as it happens. It’s possible Cyndy hadn’t heard from El in over three months, like she said. But what about the friends who went to the Cities with El? Had she not heard from them as well? It’s possible Cyndy didn’t know El had been in the hospital for six weeks, but she must have known that her BFF was missing. Maybe that’s the point. Maybe she’s worried about her friend. So what are you going to tell her?

“I don’t remember her address off the top of my head,” I said. “I think I have it written down somewhere at home, but I’ve never been to her place, so … Don’t you know?”

“Not since she moved. Just a sec.”

Moved? What does that mean?

Cyndy disappeared for a moment. When she returned, she was carrying three plates loaded with food. She set two of them down in front of patrons sitting at a small table on the other side of the pool table. The third she gave to me.

“Don’t go anywhere,” she said and busied herself with her many customers. I took that to mean she wanted to talk some more.

I ate the Philly cheese sandwich, which tasted like it had been microwaved after spending several months in a freezer. While I ate, I felt movement at the door. I turned to see Ms. Bosland enter. She was accompanied by a woman who appeared to be several years older than she was.

A fellow teacher?
my inner voice asked.

Ms. Bosland glanced around as if she wanted to see if there was anyone in O’Malley’s she recognized. Her eyes fell on me and her expression changed from curiosity to surprise and back to curiosity again. A waitress ushered her and her companion to a table for two in the restaurant area that I could see through the door. I watched her. She watched me. Back in my dating days I would have taken that as an invitation, yet something in her eyes told me to keep my distance.

I looked for Cyndy M and found her chatting with a couple of guys barely older than she was at a table near the jukebox. I wouldn’t have thought much about it except one turned his head to look at me. A moment later, the second did the same.

By then I had consumed my third beer and excused myself to the facilities. It took me a few moments to work out the location, down a short corridor just off the kitchen. When I exited, I found Ms. Bosland standing outside the women’s room. She did not speak. Instead, she extended her hand. My first thought was that she wanted to shake hands again. There was a balled-up napkin in her palm, though, and when I took it from her she stepped inside the woman’s restroom without speaking.

I returned to my stool and managed to unfold the napkin without drawing attention to myself. Ms. Bosland had written a phone number there. I glanced through the door. She had not returned to her table. I pulled out my cell phone, inputted the number, and stuffed the napkin in my pocket. Ms. Bosland answered on the first ring.

“Did you get what you wanted, the information that you wanted?” She was speaking from the restroom, and the confined quarters gave her voice an echo.

“Some of it,” I said. “Not all.”

“I couldn’t speak to you at the school; people would know. It would be different if you were a policeman, but you’re not, are you?”

“No.”

“If you want to talk, it needs to be in private.”

“I understand.”

“I doubt it.”

“Tell me.”

“Do you know where the Northern Lights Inn is?”

As a matter of fact, I did, and told her so—it was located on the outskirts of the town of Marcel, about twenty-five miles north, near where I turn off Highway 6 to head to my cabin. Yes, I really did have a place Up North.

“Meet me there in ninety minutes,” she said. “Don’t let them follow you.”

“Who is them?”

Ms. Bosland hung up her phone without answering. I glanced at my watch. It was closing in on 8:00
P.M.
Cyndy M was back behind the bar, and I waved her over.

“I need the check, sweetie,” I said.

“Leaving so soon?”

“I need to get to my place. Crank up the heat. Make sure the water pipes haven’t exploded while I was gone.”

“Where is your cabin?”

“On Lake Peterson near Spring Lake,” I said—one of the few things I told the woman that wasn’t a lie.

She nodded as if she knew exactly where it was, went to the register, and returned with my bill. I paid in cash, leaving a tip slightly over twenty percent.

“How long are you going to be up here?” Cyndy asked.

“Just a day or two to check the place out, take care of a few things.”

“Be sure to stop on your way back home.”

“I’ll do that.”

By then I was dressed for winter. I headed for the door. At the same time, Cyndy drifted to the table near the jukebox where the two young men were sitting. She said something and they started donning their coats. They seemed to be in a hurry, although one of them did stop long enough to drain his beer.

I stepped outside wondering what I was going to do about them.

*   *   *

I kept it casual, moving to my Jeep Cherokee as if I had nowhere in particular to go and all the time in the world to get there. I started up the SUV and put the heat on high, angling the vents so that the air blew on me. When the air changed from cold to warm, I pointed the Cherokee toward Highway 6. Meanwhile, the two young men left O’Malley’s and jogged to their own vehicle; I watched them in my rearview mirror. They were starting their car when I pulled onto the highway and headed north.

I did the calculations in my head and decided that they weren’t
after
me in the sense that if I wasn’t careful, I could end up in a ditch somewhere. And they didn’t want me to lead them to Ms. Bosland—how could they have known about our conversation? More likely, Cyndy M sent them to learn if I was for real, if the story I told her about just passing through on my way to my lake home was legit. So I decided to prove that it was and lead the boys right to the front door. ’Course, I was never very good at math. Also, there was the X factor that I had left out of the equation—why would she care?

The boys kept their distance, which I found encouraging. They didn’t want me to know they were back there. At one point, I think they tried to follow with their headlights off, not a good idea even if the highway wasn’t slick with ice and packed snow. I did not slow down or speed up or drive evasively for twenty miles; I barely touched my brake until I approached the intersection. Go right on Highway 286 and I’d be in Marcel in ten minutes. Go left on County Road 4 and I was headed to Spring Lake.

I went left.

The boys sped up to close the distance between us, took the turn, and drifted back again, giving me plenty of space. I drove west toward Spring Lake at about ten miles below the posted speed limit, slowing into the corners and accelerating out of them—I mentioned the ice and packed snow on the pavement, right? The boys became confused by my defensive driving. They’d speed up, slow down, speed up, and slow down again, no doubt wondering who in hell gave that crazy old man a driver’s license anyway. Just outside Spring Lake I took a right, driving north toward Big Fork on County Road 29. This led me to the turnoff for my lake home.

It was plowed to accommodate the folks who lived on Lake Peterson year-round, including the old man who kept an eye on my cabin in exchange for a couple bottles of eighteen-year-old Macallan. I followed it slowly. The road was more or less private. The only people who used it were those of us with property on the lake. Tailing me right up to my front door would have looked suspicious, so I expected the boys to break off pursuit. Unless—I felt a sudden chill that had nothing to do with the icy temperatures outside the cab of the Cherokee—unless they didn’t care. I recalled a quote from Sherlock Holmes.

The lowest and vilest alleys in London do not present a more dreadful record of sin than does the smiling and beautiful countryside … Look at these lonely houses, each in its own fields, filled for the most part with poor ignorant folk who know little of the law. Think of the deeds of hellish cruelty, the hidden wickedness which may go on, year in, year out, in such places, and none the wiser.

I didn’t know about poor ignorant folk who know little of the law, but a single gunshot in the city would attract a lot of attention, not to mention an army of cops. Up North, though? If you emptied an AK-47 in the forest, would anyone hear?

I watched the boys through my rearview mirror as I drove. They stopped at the mouth of the road and watched me watching them until a slow curve took us out of sight of each other.

I exhaled deeply.

Get a grip, McKenzie, I told myself.

No,
my inner voice insisted.
You’ve been too damn nonchalant as it is. You came up here to get a line on El, to find out where she might be hiding. Only you haven’t thought it through—the men who heaved her out of the pickup truck, they’re looking for her, too.

I stayed on the road until I met another. This one took me away from my cabin, which was just as well. I had closed up my place in October, draining the water pipes and shutting off the power. Push comes to shove, I’d probably be better off sleeping in my Cherokee.

I stayed with the second road, following the lake shore past several driveways, until it circled back toward the county blacktop. I stopped at the entrance to 29 about a mile up from where I had entered, my lights off, and stared down the pavement. It is never entirely dark in Minnesota in winter. The snow and ice nearly always find one source of illumination or another to magnify and reflect, like the quarter moon and half a billion stars that glistened in the clear night sky. I gave it a full five minutes. There were no other vehicles that I could see, so I made my way back toward Marcel, thinking at the time, Easy peasy puddin’ ’n’ pie.

SIX

Northern Lights Inn wasn’t nearly as boisterous as O’Malley’s, and I wondered if the polished furniture, spotless glassware, carefully directed lights, uniform shirts on the help, and list of top-shelf alcohol without prices had something to do with it. Or it could have been the half-dozen flat-screen TVs. Most of them were tuned to the NHL, a couple were following the first quarter of a West Coast NBA game, and one TV was showing a tape-delay woman’s volleyball game from Penn State, all with the sound off. None of the games involved a Minnesota team, though, and most people were ignoring them.

I found a stool at the bar. I was both surprised and relieved when the bartender set a bottle of Summit Extra Pale Ale in front of me—it meant I wasn’t that far from home after all.

It was a rounded bar. From where I sat, I couldn’t help but notice a young man sitting on a stool, watching me while pretending not to. His coat was unzipped, and I could see the butt of a handgun beneath it. We were supposed to see it, the other customers and I. Ever since Minnesota changed its permit-to-carry laws, you find them. The chronically insecure who believe that three to four hours in the classroom and ten minutes on the firing range make them a Hollywood action hero, and the bully-boys who need the sense of power that carrying a gun gives them. They want you to see the gun hanging under their arms or clipped to their belts; want you to know they’re packing; want to see the look in your eye when you realize that against them you don’t stand a chance. Having gone armed many times in the past, I tended to remain unimpressed. As far as I was concerned, anyone who carried a concealed weapon who wasn’t involved in some manner of law enforcement or security was an asshole. There were no exceptions—myself included.

I nursed the ale until 9:30
P.M.
, when Ms. Bosland arrived.

Of course she’s punctual,
my inner voice said.
She’s a high school principal.

She had her older friend in tow, and neither of them acknowledged my presence. Instead, they found a booth against the wall and sat across from each other, chatting amicably. Drinks were ordered and served while I watched. I half expected Ms. Bosland to leave for the restroom. When she didn’t, I figured what the hell, gathered the remains of my ale, and moved to the booth.

The bullyboy’s head turned to watch me.

“Mr. McKenzie, it’s good to see you again,” Ms. Bosland said. “Have you met my friend Camila Susko?”

“I haven’t.”

I extended my hand. Susko shook it.

“Join us, please,” Ms. Bosland said.

Susko scooted until her back was hard against the wall, giving me more space on the bench than I needed. I sat. Ms. Bosland smiled at me, yet there was no mirth in it. She spoke softly.

“I apologize for the chicanery,” she said. “I … we … need to be careful.”

Now there’s a word you don’t often hear in polite conversation,
my inner voice said.
Chicanery.

“Why?” I asked aloud.

Ms. Bosland cocked her head as if she were surprised by the question. I turned to Susko.

“Why?” I repeated.

It was Ms. Bosland who answered.

“We’re young, single, what many men might consider pretty—and we work for a small-town high school,” she said. “We’re held to a higher standard.”